About McDermott & McDermott Ltd.
David G. McDermott began providing legal services to the communities in the southern portions of Cook and Will Counties (Illinois) in May of 1979 under the name of McDermott & Associates. In 1986, when his wife (Deborah) finished law school (both of the McDermotts jointly paying for each other to go to college and then law school, while simultaneously raising 5 children – with no support from others), they started the Firm known as McDermott & McDermott, Ltd. Over the years, the Firm grew in personnel – both by the addition of lawyers as well as paralegals and support staff. As with many small firms, the range of legal services McDermott & McDermott, Ltd. provided to its Clients were general in nature, but spanned a wide range of different areas of law and often resulted in many “out of the box” solutions for many Client problems.
As a consequence of being in “general” practice, yet capable of providing innovative/unique legal solutions to Client problems, the Firm’s legal work/projects produced many unique solutions for its Clients such as (on a more esoteric level) handling all necessary protocols to have one of its wealthier Clients cryogenically preserved; undertaking an “Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors” for another of its Clients; handling the sale of a Radio Station for one of its corporate Clients; successfully prosecuting Injunctions to establish easements along the Illinois and Michigan (“I&M”) canal for a Developer; defending minority shareholders in an attempted Corporate take-over; and on a unique, but perhaps not so momentous note: defending a dog which a Municipality was attempting to have put to death.
On the other end of the spectrum, McDermott & McDermott, Ltd. attorneys prepared Wills, Trusts, and Powers of Attorney; handled divorce cases, criminal cases, traffic cases, bankruptcy cases, Chapter 11 cases, Workers’ Compensation claims, and personal injury cases. During the last 15 years of practice, David McDermott has concentrated his practice by only accepting “personal injury cases” which in and of itself consists of a range of different types of cases such as Medical Malpractice, Wrongful Death, Birth Injuries, Construction Accidents, Nursing Home Abuse, Auto accidents, Truck Accidents, Motor Cycle Accidents, Slip and Falls Accidents and Workers’ Compensation claims.
Throughout this Firm’s providing of services to its Clients, its Founders (David G. McDermott and Deborah McDermott) either led the Firm’s legal team or actively participated in ensuring that the Firm’s mission was attained, i.e., attaining Client trust not just by providing excellent service, but providing legal services in a way that achieved the Clients’ objectives as an honest, hard-working alter ego of each Client. As declared by both David and Deborah: The objective of our Firm’s attaining “Trust” with our Firm’s Clients, as well as the various communities in which we practice is by our providing legal services as if we lawyers were the ones in need of the service; and therefore our Firm follows the Golden Rule as espoused by Socrates (Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, 1477) “Do to others as thou wouldst they should do to thee, and do to none other but as thou wouldst be done to” [or, in modernized shorthand] “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Educational Background
After getting his A.A. degree from Prairie State College, David G. McDermott transferred to Eastern Illinois University. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Eastern Illinois University in 1972. He was awarded his Juris Doctorate in 1979 by the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois, and awarded the license to practice law by the Illinois Supreme Court on the 26th of April of the same year. Mr. McDermott was admitted to the Federal Trial Bar for the Northern District of Illinois on April 15th, 1987.
While continuing to work in their offices and caring for their five children, Deborah began attended Prairie State College; then transferred to and was awarded her Bachelor of Arts degree from Governor’s State University; then received her Juris Doctorate from John Marshall School of Law in Chicago. After passing the Bar, she was awarded her license to practice law on May 8th, 1986. Thirty-nine (39) days later, the Firm of McDermott & McDermott, Ltd. was founded by its sole two partners, David and Deborah McDermott.
Life Experiences (Both as Attorneys and in Life)
The shared and individual life experiences of both the founders of McDermott & McDermott Ltd. have played a central role in determining the quality of services offered at the law Firm. Having come from ordinary, even underprivileged, backgrounds—both David McDermott and Deborah McDermott take immense pride in having paid their way through college and then law schools (while raising 5 children) and thereafter establishing McDermott & McDermott, Ltd. (a successful law Firm), influencing the Villages of Park Forest, Chicago Heights, Matteson, Tinley Park and the surrounding Communities (in the southern portions of Cook and Will Counties) in many positive ways.
David G. McDermott left home before turning 16 and moved Deborah (his future wife and law partner) out of her parents’ home at the stroke of midnight on her 18th birthday. Deborah and David were married in 1970 and (at last count) have 5 children & 10 grandchildren. In working his way through high school, college and then law school, David worked the following jobs: retail clerk, retail manager, bank teller, laborer, ditch digger, fence builder, door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, hucker, chip handler, assembly line worker, bridge painter, crew foreman, U. S. Postal Carrier, Division Buyer for a major manufacturing corporation, and 711 Licensee for the State of Illinois, Attorney General’s Office.
Deborah’s life experiences are even more varied than David’s. Leaving her home (with David) at the stroke of midnight on her 18th birthday, she worked the midnight to 8 AM night shift for Dunkin Donuts ($1.00 per hour, with no tips). She then worked as a receptionist for a Korvette’s hair salon; then encyclopedia salesperson; then retail clerk, then window washer, then furniture salesperson for Ethan Allen Galleries, yet (in spite of being one of their top salespeople) when she got pregnant with their third child, she was told she had to “get off the sales floor and work in [their] warehouse” because she would be ‘unsightly’ on the sales floor; and when she refused, she was fired. She then worked as an interior designer and furniture salesperson for a large furniture store; then as an AT&T operator (8 hours in front of a telephone switchboard); then as a cashier in a grocery store; then as the entrepreneurial mind behind the establishment of a craft and hobby business which ended up having 14 employees and two stores – directly importing many craft items from Taiwan and Germany (bicycles). Also as the negotiator of the lease (which she signed on 10/31/78, without telling David) for offices which were to house their first law offices in Park Forest, IL.
Once this office opened on Law Day – May 1, 1979, she became its first receptionist and secretary – she didn’t even know how to type, but while answering the phones and taking messages, she watched their children (including their newborn) in one of their spare law offices. As the offices grew in personnel – 3 lawyers (David plus 2 other lawyers) & 4 secretaries; while still going to school and caring for/raising their children, she became the law office manager. Finally, on June 16, 1986 (after finishing all her schooling and passing the Illinois State Bar), she undertook her last position, as partner (with David) in the newly formed law Firm of McDermott & McDermott, Ltd. She continued (as partner and lawyer in the Firm) in this last position until 2013 when (due to a serious, permanent and progressively disabling illness) Deborah retired and gave up her law hard-fought-for law license.
David G. McDermott has practiced law in this same geographic location for the past forty-one (41) years. Very few firms of its size can make the statement that its “Founders have been at the helm of this Firm”, serving its surrounding communities for over forty-one (41) years – this is a criterion which gives currency to their claim of following the “Golden Rule”. You can see (above) all the many, many jobs it took him (and his wife, Deborah, who became the only other partner in McDermott & McDermott, Ltd.) to get educated and then become a lawyer. No one helped them in the creation of this Firm. No one supported them. They made their way without financial support or other substantial assistance while raising their five (5) children. While creating and maintaining their Firm, David and Deborah put their children through colleges and law schools and sent one of their children to the London School of Economics.
David and Deborah have travelled extensively throughout the world while raising their five (5) children; also putting them through college and then post-graduate schools. They have traveled extensively throughout the world, lectured in Chicago, and various communities south of Chicago as well as at the Beijing School of Law and experienced other peoples and cultures – all hard-won accomplishments. Experiences of the McDermott & McDermott, Ltd. partners are not only wide and extremely varied but also those born of just living, one day at a time, no matter what the odds were “against them” These experiences served to empower them into giving back to those whom they served.
Their empathy for their Clients and meticulous attention to the details of their Clients’ particular problems and concerns springs from the fact that both partners of McDermott & McDermott Ltd. never forgot their humble beginnings, neither was born with a “silver spoon”; every dollar counted, and now (41+ years later) their Firm (McDermott & McDermott, Ltd.) continues its quest to provide “excellence” in its legal services while zealously pursuing the best possible outcomes for each of their Clients’ cases.